Thursday, December 23, 2021

Secrets of Vibrant Isle - another dissapointment

Secrets of Vibrant Isle is a new solo journaling game designed by Craig Campbell. It is a game I was very hyped about, so I could not wait to start playing it.
Kickstarter previews reminded me very much on TYOV, so I hoped for similar experience.

Unfortunately, after playing one session  (complete 4 weeks dame), I feel I received less than I expected.



First weeks are dedicated to "exploration of the island" which translates to rolling D100 to decide the prompt. Prompts are usually nothing more than call for a skill test on D10. Succeed and you get one thing (usually good), fail and you get another (usually bad). So far there is nothing to push the story forward, and no resource management that could make the tension (resource management is what makes TYOV fun).

Story mode of the game actually starts after rolling doubles for the first time on exploration roll (which, statistically, should always happen somewhere in week 2). But this part of the game consists of only 5 prompts + one of the several possible finale prompts, and unfortunately also has little to offer.

The final challenge is nothing more than 4 skill test rolled in a row, so this game definitely goes to the back shelf. I really hoped for more from this.

3 comments:

  1. That is a shame - you last post with the demo seemed to indicate it was going to be a good fit for you.

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  2. It is not the same game :)
    As I said I was hyped about two games - one was Secret of Vibrant isle, whose kickstarter delivered and it turned out to be a miss.
    The other is Apawthecaria, thst is the one I tried the demo for. Apawthecaria kickstarter should deliver in 2022 and based on demo I do believe I will love it.

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    Replies
    1. Oops. I was only going on memory :-) I remembered kickstarter and hype and did not remember there was two games. Hopefully Apawthecaria is not a dud then!

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